A Recurring Nightmare
by HGF88
Summary: A quick one-off I wrote a while back; never really occurred to me to post here until now.


_"Born of laughter, clothed in cheer, happiness has brought you here. Welcome, dear, to Pixie Hollow." The first sound she heard was a voice. She opened her eyes slowly and blinked a couple times to get the dust out of her eyes. What was it that made the voice? It sounded close... there, to her right, a tall, brightly-glowing figure, looking at her kindly, holding out a hand. She took it feather-gently, feeling a slight buzz along her arm, through her shoulder, and into her spine, and she became aware of a set of wings on her back. She flapped them once, twice, three times in quick succession, rising off the smooth mushroom's cap making up the floor of the stage. She hovered in a circle, and in doing so she saw hundreds upon hundreds of other figures like the one she was holding onto, but... different. They all were about the same size as herself and the golden-dressed one, with wings on their back, two arms, two legs, and a face made up of two eyes, a nose between, a mouth below, and an ear on each side. But the one holding her hand was different, in clothing, in wing style, and in that atop her head was a shining tiara. It dawned upon the new arrival that this fairy looked different for a reason: she must be the leader._

_"My name is Queen Clarion," she confirmed, "and these are your fellow fairies and sparrow-men, inhabitants of Pixie Hollow and bringers of the seasons to the Mainland. Each of them has a special talent - be it control of water or light, the gift of fast flight, or a sharp eye for decorating - just like you do. We're here now to find out what yours is. Do you understand?"_

_The arrival nodded, and with that the Queen called up the representatives of each talent to place on a table an object symbolizing their ability. Once all was in place, the Queen nodded to the arrival to look through the assortment, and, one by one, she did._

_First was a ball of light. She reached out towards it, but it grew dim and dull in color and seemed to settle back down towards its pedestal. The crowd sighed in disappointment. Light wasn't her talent. That's okay, almost nobody gets it on the first try, right?_

_Next, a flower. As she tried to grab it, it, too, became grayer and settled down to its own pedestal. Another disappointed sigh from the crowd. Garden-talent was out._

_A hammer was third, with the same result. Not a tinkerer._

_Animal-talent? No._

_Water-talent? No._

_Fast-flying talent? No._

_Scribe talent? No._

_Mining? Music? Forest, frost, masonry? No, no, no, no, no._

_Soon enough, she'd exhausted her options. Not a talent left to choose from. Nothing. Zip, zilch, zero, not a single speck of hope. She had no talent, not even an undiscovered one. Because of her lack of a talent, she would have to go unnamed. She'd be the lowest of the low, below rock bottom. A worthless nothing. A hindrance, a setback. She had nothing to add to the world._

Moonglimmer awoke with a start. This was the fourth time this week she'd had the nightmare, the talentless one. She topped a stick with a gem of light and fluttered quietly out of her flower, setting herself on the ground. The soil felt good in between her toes. She smiled lightly to herself.

Suddenly, the sound of flapping wings grew closer, and a pair of feet landed softly in the dirt as hers had moments before. She looked up and recognized Jasper, a fast-flying talent. His purple glasses gleamed in the light of her torch."

"Hey, Moon," he greeted quietly. "Bad dream again?"

"You know me. If I'm not sleeping like a rock, I've had a nightmare. Tonight was the talentless one again."

"Third time this week you've had a nightmare, third this month with that one alone. You want to go to a problem-solver?"

"No… not yet, anyway. I just need to fly it off for now, I think. Certainly is a nice night for it."

Jasper smiled gently. "Wanna go to the Tearoom?"

"Sounds great," replied Moonglimmer. She grinned. "Race ya, I call five-second head start!" With that, she took off as fast as she could, Jasper soon catching up.

At their destination, tea and light soup were ordered. Jokes were shared, one-liners were given in jest, and all was well. For a while.

A little before dawn, though, the night became absolutely silent. More so than it should have been, even for this time of night. Something was… off. Everything seemed to have a very slight glaze over it. The air was staticy.

"Do you feel that?" asked Jasper.

"A storm," nodded Moonglimmer.


End file.
